--- title: Review: HBO's We Are Who We Are Is Heady, Immersive, Inert description: 'Call Me by Your Name' director Luca Guadagnino brings his languid, youth aesthetic to the small screen. But does his sensibility translate to TV? canonical: https://time.com/5886755/we-are-who-we-are-review-hbo/ author: Judy Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-09-14T10:00:39.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T09:11:18.317Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: HBO's We Are Who We Are Is Heady, Immersive—And Oddly Inert og:description: Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino brings his languid, youthful aesthetic to TV, with mixed results og:url: https://time.com/5886755/we-are-who-we-are-review-hbo/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d348ada41c6901e/698a11ffb21a9c37d3503fd7/WAWWA_Ep01_020819_YD_0017_r-1_1.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: WAWWA_Ep01_020819_YD_0017_r (1)_1 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: HBO's We Are Who We Are Is Heady, Immersive—And Oddly Inert twitter:description: Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino brings his languid, youthful aesthetic to TV, with mixed results twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d348ada41c6901e/698a11ffb21a9c37d3503fd7/WAWWA_Ep01_020819_YD_0017_r-1_1.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Luca Guadagnino's HBO Drama _We Are Who We Are_ Is Heady, Gorgeous—and Strangely Inert  by [Judy Berman](/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Sep 14, 2020 10:00 AM CUT  Jordan Kristine Seamón and Jack Dylan Grazer in 'We Are Who We Are' Jordan Kristine Seamón and Jack Dylan Grazer in 'We Are Who We Are'Yannis Drakoulidis/HBO  by [Judy Berman](/author/judy-berman/)  ## Judy Berman TV Critic Sep 14, 2020 10:00 AM CUT Fraser is an angsty 14-year-old New Yorker with painted fingernails and a fuzzy upper lip. He reads [William S. Burroughs](https://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/naked-lunch-1959-by-william-burroughs/ "undefined"), listens to the androgynous ’70s East Village singer [Klaus Nomi](https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/970-the-curious-career-of-klaus-nomi/ "undefined") and twirls derisively through basketball games, as though mocking the very idea of sports. Sometimes his petulance crosses over into violence. It makes him hard to like. Caitlin is part of a wild clique. She has a boyfriend but seems ambivalent about sex. A beautiful late bloomer, she’s begun to have an effect on guys that incites fearsome outbursts from her older brother. There’s something uncomfortable about how close she is with her father. And sometimes, she puts on a loose button-down shirt, stuffs her long, wavy hair into a cap and lets girls mistake her for a boy. In _We Are Who We Are_—a sensual, immersive but weirdly inert HBO drama from [_Call Me by Your Name_](https://time.com/5042707/call-me-by-your-name-shape-of-water-fearlessly-display-love/ "undefined") and [_Suspiria_](https://time.com/5384890/suspiria-review/ "undefined") director Luca Guadagnino that premieres on Sept. 14—the two teens are interlocking puzzle pieces. They become neighbors in the months leading up to the 2016 Presidential election, when Fraser’s (Jack Dylan Grazer of _It_) mom Sarah ([Chloë Sevigny](https://time.com/5219721/chloe-sevigny-lean-on-pete/ "undefined")) is named commander of a U.S. Army base in Italy, uprooting him as well as her wife Maggie (_Queen of the South_ star Alice Braga), an Army physician. After he catches Caitlin (self-possessed newcomer Jordan Kristine Seamón) in drag—quietly accepting what her beloved, MAGA-hat-wearing military dad (Kid Cudi) would surely not—Fraser introduces her to the concept of nonbinary gender identity. She helps him feel less alone in a strange land. They make each other make sense. The show develops characters and relationships to the near exclusion of plot, with the first two episodes covering Fraser’s arrival at the base from his perspective, then again from Caitlin’s. When the story finally starts to move, what emerges isn’t a galvanizing problem so much as a sense that each character, no matter how seemingly clear, will come to surprise us. Sarah is dominant at work and in her marriage but absorbs violent attacks from her emotionally disturbed son. Characters are more flexible in their identities than meets the eye. Guadagnino lingers on blurred binaries—straight and gay, Black and white, adolescence and adulthood, love and hate. The base is, itself, a liminal space: a tiny, almost imaginary American dot on the map of Italy. It’s a lovely, if increasingly common, theme—one that is fleshed out in languid scenes of beach trips, street festivals that end in fireworks displays, secretive all-night gatherings. When Caitlin, Fraser and their friends get swept up in collective ecstasy, still shots freeze the action, as if to commemorate the brief fusion of so many different consciousnesses. The cultural references, from [Frank Ocean](https://time.com/tag/frank-ocean/feed/ "undefined") on the soundtrack to a peach pie that sent me back to the, er, [juiciest scene of Guadagnino’s own masterpiece](https://www.out.com/out-exclusives/2017/10/04/art-seduction-armie-hammer-hottest-movie-season "undefined"), serve a real, emotional purpose. In the standout fourth episode, set almost entirely at one of those endless, bittersweet teenage parties that attendees leave feeling inexplicably changed, an intoxicated Black boy tries to prove to a rival that he has depth. What comes out is a line from [Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”](https://time.com/4225069/2016-grammys-kendrick-lamar-alright-the-blacker-the-berry/ "undefined") (which itself quotes Alice Walker’s _The Color Purple_): “Alls my life I has to fight.” An inscrutable character suddenly becomes slightly more legible. Such moments, when time dilates and an audiovisual medium achieves almost tactile vividness, are Guadagnino’s trademark. Yet his sensibility doesn’t fully translate to TV. While a movie is self-contained, _We Are Who We Are_ doesn’t generate enough narrative momentum in early episodes to either hook weekly viewers or fuel an eight-hour binge. The distinction between film and TV has been whittled down to near non-existence, now that the pandemic has made almost all video into home video. Auteurs from [David Lynch](https://time.com/twin-peaks-revisited/ "undefined") to [Paolo Sorrentino](https://time.com/4623402/hbo-jude-law-the-young-pope/ "undefined") to [Jane Campion](https://time.com/4936536/jane-campion-top-of-the-lake/ "undefined") have adapted their signature styles to a serialized format. But that doesn’t mean every transition to serialized storytelling will be seamless. Guadagnino, for one, might have to settle for being a master filmmaker. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5886755/we-are-who-we-are-review-hbo/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5886755/we-are-who-we-are-review-hbo/"},"headline":"Luca Guadagnino's HBO Drama We Are Who We Are Is Heady, Gorgeous—and Strangely Inert","datePublished":"2020-09-14T10:00:39.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T09:11:18.317Z","description":"The show develops characters and relationships to the near exclusion of plot","url":"https://time.com/5886755/we-are-who-we-are-review-hbo/","keywords":["Television","review"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d348ada41c6901e/698a11ffb21a9c37d3503fd7/WAWWA_Ep01_020819_YD_0017_r-1_1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Judy Berman","jobTitle":"TV Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/judy-berman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d348ada41c6901e/698a11ffb21a9c37d3503fd7/WAWWA_Ep01_020819_YD_0017_r-1_1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"WAWWA_Ep01_020819_YD_0017_r (1)_1","caption":"Jordan Kristine Seamón and Jack Dylan Grazer in 'We Are Who We Are'","creditText":"Yannis Drakoulidis/HBO","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/television/","name":"Television"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5886755/we-are-who-we-are-review-hbo/","name":"Luca Guadagnino's HBO Drama We Are Who We Are Is Heady, Gorgeous—and Strangely Inert"}}]}] ```